Adventures of an Arrogant Brit
by lizoftheinfinite
Summary: Christophe and Gregory, a mercenary and a civil rights activist, work together for various missions. What could possible go wrong? T for language, violence. Some slash. Oneshot series.
1. Anarachy

**This is where my Christophe and Gregory oneshots shall live, since I come up with far too many ideas for them. Slash or no slash, depending on my mood.**

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><p>Christophe watches as Gregory writes <em>Viva La Resistance<em> on the bathroom wall in his own blood.

"Isn't zis going a bit too far?' He can't help but ask.  
>"Shut up, Mole."<p>

* * *

><p>Gregory has a cause.<p>

He's been a civil-rights activist since he was seven years old and he found Christophe filled with bullets and dying in the gutter.

He was the one to help Christophe locate his mother.  
>He was the one to help Christophe burn down that godforsaken lab that gave him his supernatural abilities with his shovel.<p>

And as he watched the place go up in flames, he realized it was not enough.

All around the world, people were suffering. Children forced to work in factories, sell themselves on the streets. The Canada-American war briefly tempered his thirst for justice.

He managed to keep his head in his studies for a few more years.

Then he learned about the neo-nazis.

* * *

><p>They're spreading North, and the general population being what it is, people have started to pick up their ideals.<p>

There are lynchings in South Carolina. A woman raped and murdered in Tennessee for kissing her girlfriend in public. Then, finally, the last straw, a group of foreigners ambushed and beaten late at night.  
>He burned with rage when he heard. How dare they taint his home with such . . . filth?<br>Christophe went along with his plans willingly. They organized rallies, signed petitions - Gregory even talked to the governor. Little is being done against it. And so they reformed the resistance.  
>At first it was just kids from their home town. Then it grew and overflowed with more and more people adding their names to the list, striping red paint over their cheeks, that it became The Resistance.<p>

The Neo-Nazis were aware of them. They made public statements against them.

But the two groups had not confronted until today.

This morning they both set up on their stages on opposite ends of Denver. An atheist spoke about freedom of speech. A skinhead talked about 'fucking up the fags and heathens.'

Gregory wanted direct negotiation. He wanted to talk with their leader, Michael Penn, about moving his base of operations out of Colorado.  
>He did not expect the riot. The two groups met at the city center of town and fought with fists and broken beer bottles and knives. The death tolls rose by the second. The police broke the two groups up and ordered the arrest of the leaders. Christophe grabbed Gregory, who was in the middle of punching the shit out of an ignorant hick, and dragged him away.<p>

That's why they're here in the bathroom.

* * *

><p>"We should go 'ome," Christophe says. "Get out of 'ere before anyone knows we are involved."<br>Gregory is reapplying the red streaks on his cheeks with the blood from the wound on his arm. "Don't be ridiculous."  
>"Right. <em>I'm<em> ridiculous." Christophe is covered in mud from the brawl, splattered with other people's blood. "Right."  
>Gregory ignores him, trying to get the streaks just the perfect thickness. He looks rebellious now, grim and determined. Perfect. He wets his hand under the tap and slicks back his hair.<br>"You seriously aren't zinking of speaking tonight, are you-"  
>"I'm signed up to speak at nine tonight on the center stage," Gregory says, "and I intend to do so."<br>"Ze police 'ave probably shut us down."  
>"They cannot control my freedom of speech."<br>"You kind of started a riot."  
>"Must you be so contrary, Mole?" He readjusts his collar.<br>Christophe shakes his head. "We're royally fucked, you know zat?"  
>"I know that," he says.<p>

"Zen why do you do zis?"  
>"How can I not?" He clenches the sides of the sink and looks at the faucet. "How do you expect me to stand by and just let people suffer when there's something I can do about it?"<br>Christophe stands behind him and places a bloodstained hand on his already-grimy orange shirt.  
>"You don't care about ze people," he says. "You just want a cause to fight for."<br>"Shut the fuck up, mole."

He knows its true. Christophe knows everything about him.  
>Christophe shakes his head and starts for the door. "I need a fucking cigarette," he mumbles.<br>"So what?" Gregory almost screams after him. "So what if I fight because I need to and not because I want to? So what if it's part of who I am to want to help people? Why should this need make what I do any less important?"  
>Christophe stops and looks back at him.<br>"Eet fucks wiz your judgement," he says. "I don't zink you can manage it on zat stage. I zink you'll yell and scream and get pissed off because zings 'aven't been so picture perfect so far."

Gregory runs his fingers through his hair. "Trust me," he says. "I am perfectly calm."

* * *

><p>They're on stage, the two of them, the other senior members who managed to avoid jail around them. There's Stan, there's Kyle, there's Wendy, bruised up but grinning.<br>"We're going to jail for this," Kyle says, quite cheerfully. "Probably hell, too." He and Stan slap high-fives.  
>The crowd is almost entirely full of neo-nazis. The Resistance members shy away to clumps on the edge. The tension murmurs through the people below, shaven heads staring up at him. Police officers are already running down the streets beyond. Gregory doesn't have a lot of time to speak.<br>Before he can even say a word, Michael Penn steps on stage.  
>He's a tall man, with tattoos all over his neck and bare shoulders, white, brown hair, scarred, and pissed off. He jabs an accusing finger at Gregory.<br>"This country was founded for the rights of American citizens!" he shouts. "Not for fucking Brits like you to fuck around in. You have no right to be here. What is this, some sort of game for you? Fucking around with our god-given duty to eliminate the fags and heathens and fuckers who populate our beautiful country? You have no right to screw with us any longer, British elitist scum!"  
>Gregory raises his eyebrows and affords a sideways glance at Christophe. It's near night, but the stadium lights cast bizarre shadows on their faces. He knows everyone in the crowd can see them from this elevated spot on the stage.<p>

"What should we do?" he murmurs.

"Piss 'im off even more," Christophe says, and spits out his cigarette and grabs Gregory for a long kiss. They mash lips for several seconds, and when Christophe pulls back he mutters, "We are so fucked."

Then the crowd ignites into beautiful fucking chaos.


	2. Standard Mission

I wrote this over a year ago.

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><p>It's one-thirty at night, and someone's crawling through his window.<p>

Christophe's eyes snap open and he makes out the silhouette against the curtains. He snatches his shovel up from its customary spot on the pillow next to him and whacks the intruder in the knees. They go down, groaning in pain. He raises the shovel for a blow to drive them unconscious.

"Mole . . . cut it out . . . it's just me . . . " A familiar British voice wheezes out.

Christophe lowers the shovel and glowers at the person below him. "Gregory?"

". . . I think you broke my kneecaps."

Snorting, Christophe sits back down on his bed. He sleeps in sweatpants and a ragged Star-Trek t-shirt, as years of experience have taught him it's not fun to be running for your life in just your boxers. Gregory looks as impeccable as always, even though he's on the floor and biting his lip to keep down his cries of pain. His orange, collared shirt is pressed and creased perfectly, and not a strand of hair out of place. Christophe despises people like him.

"I 'ave told you about zree 'undred time to knock."

"Thought you wouldn't wake up." Gregory crawls to his feet and flops on his bed next to Christophe. "You didn't have to hit me with your shovel."

He rolls his eyes. "Eet weel teach you not to be such a fucking pussy."

Gregory opens his mouth as if to respond to that, then shuts it. Christophe waits patiently.

He shakes his head. "Never mind. We have a mission."

"A mission?" He shuffles around his bedside table until his hand close over his packet of cigarettes. "You woke me up at one-zirty een ze fucking morning, and you expect me to 'elp you on anozer mission? Can't ze mission wait until, oh, ten or so?"

"Christophe," Gregory says patiently, "it's your fault I have to do so many missions anyway."

"No eet's not."

"Yes it is."

"No, eet's not."

"You're the one who got me kicked out of Yardale. _Brutally_ kicked out of Yardale."

Christophe scowls at him. He can't deny that. The 'zombie strippers' incident was his idea.

"And with something like that on my record," Gregory continues, "the only way I'll ever get into Oxford, even with my perfect SAT scores, is if I have copious amounts of money and I save the world a few times."

Christophe lights his cigarette. "You saved ze world in ze zird grade."

"No, I merely organized the operation that ended up saving the world. I've never saved the world on my own, only several small nations."

"Ehhhh." He offers Gregory a cigarette. Gregory shakes his head.

"You know you want one."

Gregory mutters "bloody hell" under his breath like a true brit and accepts the cigarette. They sit there for a few seconds, smoking quietly. The reek of chemical-flavored smoke fills the room. Christophe's mother will flip out on them if she smells the smoke, but he keeps the window open and hopes she won't notice it when she wakes.

"I seriously doubt we weel end up saving ze world on zis mission," Christophe says.

"You've cursed us. We definitely will now," Gregory says cheerfully. "You need to get dressed?"

"Yeah, yeah," he mutters as he rises to his feet. The one night he decided to get six full hours of sleep, and he's woken up anyway. He's going back to coffee.

He trips over the junk on the ground several times on the way to his closet. He will never clean his room. Never. Ever. No one can make him. His mother grounded him for a month last year, and she finally gave up when she saw that it wasn't working. He digs through his closet for his gloves, his cargo pants, and a green t-shirt. Gregory, the prude, averts his eyes as Christophe changes.

"What kind of mission ees eet, anyway?" he calls from amidst the pile of clothes.

"Something fun, I think."


	3. Speak

**Okay, I wrote more fanfiction even though I said I wouldn't. Oh well. **

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><p>Missions are adrenaline and the reek of sweat and too much violence in the air.<p>

When we're running from a bullet-spatter, screaming our heads off and firing back, forgetting who the enemy is and what the point of it all is, knowing nothing but the urge to _live live live_, that's when I feel most like what I really am. Wild. Vicious. Violence.

Not all missions are fun and mad with the too-fast rush. Some are like this, when both Gregory and I are handcuffed to chairs, gagged, and trying not to pass out from blood loss.

* * *

><p>He's some sort of mafia leader, or a gang boss, or a drug runner. Something like that, something that makes him the Enemy. Gregory receives all the mission details, I just supply the infiltration expertise.<p>

The Enemy can tell that I'm nothing, so he and his goons ignore me, standing over Gregory.

They rip the gag off. They slap him a bit. They ask the usual: who hired you, what are you trying to do. Gregory says nothing, gives them only a sneer. I'm proud.

They knock the chair over. His head bangs into the tiles, and he winces but doesn't cry out.

"Listen, kid," the Enemy sighs, crouching down next to him. "Because that's what you are, right? Sixteen, seventeen at most? Look at you. You're still young. You don't want to die like this, in a shithole like this place, working for someone who probably didn't pay you all that much anyway."

Gregory continues to say nothing. I continue to be proud. Some of the goons look at me. I slouch back in my chair, the picture of confidence with sweat slicking down my arms from the desert air and blood in my eyes, daring them to try to get me to talk.

The Enemy continues to ignore me. Gregory's the important one here.

"So who hired you? Who wanted you to snoop out our secrets?"

Gregory sighs. "Client confidentiality," he says after a few seconds.

The Enemy kicks him in face, full-on. The legs of the chair bash up against the walls. This time, Gregory does cry out. A few broken teeth scatter over the ground. Blood pools around his face. His eyes darken.

"_Listen. Listen_, kid. I'm not like those bad guys you see on TV. I'm not gonna kill the two of you if you talk. I'll keep you here until I've moved my shipments, but that's only for my own personal safety, and it'll only take a week. You'll be free to go. Just talk."

Gregory shakes his head.

The Enemy kicks him in the stomach this time. Gregory groans but doesn't cry out again. I go from worry to back to being proud.

Then one of the goons hands the Enemy a crowbar.

He hits him in the ribs. The crack makes me flinch. Then in the shoulder. He misses once, and the impact shatters the chair apart. Gregory tries to get up, tries to struggle free of the wooden wreckage, but the Enemy bashes him across the head.

I start screaming through my gag, because I think he's killed him.

But Gregory moves away from the wall, leaving behind a slick spill of blood. He sits up straight, touches his red-matted hair, then throws up his other arm to counter the neck blow from the crowbar.

Another crunching sound as his forearm snaps.

Gregory makes a noise that's not quite screaming, not quite sobbing, and crumples back to the tiles.

The Enemy grabs him by the broken arm, twisting it, and he's smiling even as he says, "Come on, kid. Just talk."

Gregory shakes his head, teeth gritting, and the Enemy kicks him back against the wall.

A few more violent slams of metal on flesh. I manage to stop screaming through the gag, and look away. My world is numbing the way it does when I'm fighting, when I can only focus each second at once.

_This _is real violence.

"Gonna-" _slam "_talk" _slam_ "now?"

"_No-" _Gregory sobs out, and the Enemy slams the crowbar across his face. Gregory's head jerks back and I swallow down my scream. Most of me is numb.

He's only unconscious, and they revive him with a bucket of water.

"It'll be easy," the Enemy drawls. "I just need a name. Just tell me fucking name."

Gregory shakes his head.

The fire makes him shriek, high-pitched, like a boy much younger than him, like a victim. The Enemy is grinning again as he moves the cigarette lighter up Gregory's cheek, closer and closer to his right eye. He pauses, as if he's giving Gregory time to reconsider.

Now it reeks of smoke and burning flesh. Gregory's whole body spasms as the pupils burn. Then he lies still.

They have to revive him with icewater again.

Tears roll down his cheeks, but he still shakes his head when ordered to talk. The Enemy lifts him by the hair, and turns to me.

"Look at this," he says.

I look.

"He's the guy with the plans, right? The one who organizes all of this. Oh, we've heard of you two. You're quite a famous mercenary pair, for being so young yet so effective. He's the smart one, the one who's under control."

He drops Gregory, who collapses again, his eyes fogged over.

"Pathetic," he says.

He cracks the crowbar along Gregory's wounded ribs, making him scream again. Then they take the gag off me, and only have to ask once and threaten Gregory once before I tell them everything they want to know.

* * *

><p>The Enemy keeps his word. They have a doctor come in a look after Gregory, sling up his broken bones and wrap his wounds and take care of his concussion, and even though we're kept in a tiny cell we're fed well enough and not beaten again.<p>

I say, "I'm sorry I talked" a few times. Gregory's jaw was dislocated in the beating and even though the doctor bandaged it, it's difficult for him to reply.

Then, when the shipment's moved, they release us. They even have the goodwill to drive us to the airport and buy us plane tickets back to Colorado.

Now it's time to be angry, to be pissed off, to curse and rage, and I spit out my hate for those bastards, how we'll get them back once we're healed up. Gregory nods along but doesn't say anything. His jaw must be hurting him too much.

I say "I'm sorry," again.

* * *

><p>We pretend things go back to normal. A few requests for mercenary work come in the mail, but Gregory's arm needs to mend and I don't to go alone.<p>

Our apartment is too small and too quiet. Sometimes I'll wake up to the sound of him crying, and I'll have to pretend to sleep until he stops. Both of us pretend it didn't damage him, that he's still just as confident as he was before.

At least, we try.

The phone call breaks it open. The employers who asked us to infiltrate the Enemy's hideaway want our help again. They don't care that we talked. They want us to go back up against the same guys, try taking them down again.

Gregory listens on speakerphone, and he accepts when our employers are finished explaining, and then he hangs up and turns to face me.

It's early in the morning, early enough for me to have an excuse and hide my gaze in my coffee.

"I don't know I can go back to that," he says.

I shrug and continue to not look at him.

"I-" He stops, and now we're both awkwardly pretending not to notice each other.

"You don't 'ave to," I say. "I can 'andle zis on my own." Even though I desperately want him by my side.

I want him to be strong again.

I want the Enemy to not be right.

I don't say anything else.

"It'll give me a chance to kill that bastard," he says. "It'll be good." He clenches his fists. His voice still sounds a little nasally as he speaks, but I know his jaw is almost healed, all his bruises gone. Physically, he's whole again, well enough to fight.

"So we're going? On ze mission?" I say carefully.

"I'll make the flight arrangements right away," he says, heading over to the desktop computer in the living room.

If I were a good friend, I would tell him to stop, that we have to sit this one out. Because it's too soon for him. He's still shaken from the breakdown, still self-doubting, still fragile.

But I doubt it will ever get better. There will always be things to break us down in our line of work, things that scar us with nightmares, things that we will never, ever forget. The only option for escape is to give it up entirely.

And I can't give it up. Because it's been too long since the rush of adrenaline, too long since the mad panic and spray of bullets and breathless screaming, too long since the wild, vicious violence.

I'm not a good friend.

And I'm so goddamned proud of how straight his shoulders are, how well he hides that pathetic part of him.

So I tell him, "We'll kill zat mozzerfucker for sure," and head back to my room to pack.


End file.
